The National Crime Agency has been given funding to recruit 300 extra officers as part of the government’s commitment to crack down on criminal gangs profiting from small-boats crossings.
The £100m package will include funding for up to 300 personnel "focused on intelligence targeting crime gang members", the Home Office has announced. This cash injection follows funding last summer for the NCA to recruit 100 additional specialist intelligence officers to target smuggling gangs.
Rob Jones, the NCA’s director general of operations, said: “The NCA focuses on making the biggest impact on organised crime groups behind these lethal crossings.
“We currently have 91 investigations ongoing into the most dangerous people smuggling networks impacting the UK, and are working with partners at home and abroad to target, disrupt and dismantle them.
“This additional funding will help boost our capacity and capability, enabling us to target more offenders.”
The NCA reported that in 2024-25, it achieved 351 NCA-led disruptions of organised immigration crime networks and activity – its highest level on record – and a 40% increase on the previous financial year. That included 56 high-impact NCA-led disruptions, which meant that those particular investigations led to the prosecution and disruption of those directly responsible for committing the crimes, and resulted in a significant and/or long term impact on the capability of the organised crime group involved.
The funding will also pay for state-of-the-art detection technology and new equipment to target networks offering small-boats crossings, as well as supporting the pilot of the "one-in, one-out" returns agreement between the UK and France.
And it will provide a cash injection boost to the Border Security Command, NCA, the police and other law enforcement agency partners to strengthen investigations targeting smuggling kingpins and disrupt their operations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and beyond.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper said the government has developed a “serious and comprehensive plan to dismantle” small-boats gangs, “from disrupting their supply chains across the European continent to clamping down on their illegal working operations here in the UK”.
“In the last 12 months, we have set the foundations for this new and much stronger law enforcement approach – establishing the new Border Security Command, strengthening the National Crime Agency and UK police operations, increasing Immigration Enforcement, introducing new counter terror style powers in our border security bill, and establishing cooperation agreements with Europol and other countries,” she added.
“Now this additional funding will strengthen every aspect of our plan, and will turbo-charge the ability of our law enforcement agencies to track the gangs and bring them down, working with our partners overseas, and using state-of-the-art technology and equipment.
“Alongside our new agreements with France, this will help us drive forward our Plan for Change commitments to protect the UK’s border security and restore order to our immigration system.”